Calvin

Don't let those eyes fool you.

.........

Calvin brings a LOT of hilarity and laughter to life -- often without meaning to.  One thing I love about Calvin is that he doesn't mind being the joke; he'll milk a mistake or a dilemma just for the humor in it.  For instance, every single year -- every.single.year. -- while we're on vacation he somehow gets a bug bite on his right ear, and the ear balloons up and turns bright red.  Rather than sequester himself and his deformed ear away in shame and disgrace until the swelling goes down, he uses it to his comedic advantage.  See photo at right.

When Calvin was little it took him a while to be able to articulate entire words and tricky vowel combinations, so his sentences were often made up of fragments, exaggerated vowels, and words missing the first syllable.  We actually had to interpret Calvinese to the rest of the world ("I 'unt eitss--eem" = "I want ice cream.").  Now entire words spill from him effortlessly...Maybe too effortlessly...as in, there is little to no punctuation, inflection, or break between words.  It's as if the ideas are just too many, too fast, to pay heed to the pesky speed bumps of punctuation.  Maybe a career as an auctioneer awaits him?

This is the exciting thing about Calvin:  he's still growing, learning, and collecting the hobbies and experiences that will mature into talents and passions...so the world is his oyster.  Whether he's swimming or drawing or studying the stars, I love seeing the enthusiasm and humor with which Calvin throws himself into everything.  He reminds me that there is an inexhaustible number of interesting things in the world, and that there's a lot to laugh about, too.